Chapter Text
Lancelot slid out of saddle first, and guided Gawain down after him.
Gawain tried to walk under his own power, but the world tilted and he stumbled, caught hold of Lancelot--
--who stood like a statue, utterly unimpressed. "Are you done?"
"Done?" his brow wrinkled, and he felt his knees wobble. "I..."
Lancelot slipped arms under his shoulders and knees in the moment before he collapsed, and lifted him without protest.
"How?" Gawain marveled distantly. "You're so lean."
"I have bad news about the last months and your own self," he chided him, and carried him into his tent. Nothing had been disturbed since they had left for the islands. And he had chosen his own tent for a reason, knowing that Squirrel was probably sleeping in Gawain's bed.
He very gently, and very lithely, laid Gawain in his bed and spread every blanket and fur in the tent over him. He sat on the bedside for a moment and admired him. "This is what it took to make you vulnerable."
"Hn?" he wondered intelligently, hovering in the confusing space between sleepy and aroused. He coughed quietly.
"I thought you had to trust me, but it turns out all I needed to do was kill you, let you come back from the dead, and then let the world have a go at you next."
Gawain tried to laugh, but it turned into a rattling cough. "Is it so difficult to believe?"
"A lot of it is pretty unbelievable," Lancelot allowed. "We live in interesting times." He stared directly into Gawain's hooded, grass-green eyes, examining the slow twist of unnatural shades there. "Even now." He placed a hand on Gawain's neck gently, with his thumb across his throat, and watched in fascination as the twisting shadows quickened in time with Gawain's pulse. "You still want me to kill you."
Gawain breathed and stared back, too weak to disguise his soul. Was today the day? Would the Weeping Monk keep his promise? He could almost feel the peace, the deep silence of twilight. Oh, he wanted it.
The corners of Lancelot's eyes fell. He frowned without frowning, a portrait of disappointment.
Gawain panicked. Well and truly panicked. He wrapped both hands around Lancelot's arm before he could pull away. "Don't go," the words fell out of his mouth, hurried and tripping over each other. "Keep your promise."
His eyes widened. "You're... You're a madman. Know that."
"I need you," he begged. And Lancelot could see that was true. His every aspect reflected need of some kind of another. Water, air, warmth, sustenance, care, reassurance, sex, protection.
Death.
Lancelot scoffed. "Well, green knight, you're in luck. I'm mad, too." He leaned in, holding Gawain's neck firmly in place as a promise, and kissed him hard. Mercifully, he let up quickly to allow Gawain to get air. "First we will get your strength up. Then I'm going to take you apart."
Gawain shuddered, but a smile passed over him.
"Rest. I will find you some hot food." He covered him with his own cloak, tucking the hood around his neck-- a promise? A threat? Care? Then he left him alone.
Gawain floated. He didn't know if he slept or not. His limbs were very heavy and his stomach scraped insistently against his spine, lured there by the mention of food. He couldn't remember the last time he hadn't been hungry. Maybe before he died. He wanted to push himself up, get himself together, but the memory of the monk's hand on his throat, caring so much, dragged him back down. On the islands, when they were most in danger, Lancelot had done everything exactly right, though it must have stung to be held back so. He could be the one to obey now. He could wait.
He grimaced. There was so much to be done. Incredibly, he could still hear obligations buzzing low in the back of his mind. Why wouldn't they just let him die?
Lancelot returned a moment or a era later with an armful of clothes and a hot bowl of stew.
Gawain's attention fixed on the bowl involuntary.
He smirked and set the bundle of clothes down, and the bowl near them. "At least your stomach can get through to you." He extracted something from the pile of clothes. Something long, grey, dull, and about the length of a man's hand. "I found something interesting in your tent while I was fetching your other set of clothes. Don't worry, I didn't let Percival or Gareth see it." He pointed it at him like a dagger, smirking a wicked smirk. "What's your explanation for this?"
Gawain licked his lips, impatient for the stew, but hauled his eyes away and then grimaced. "I decided when I was younger that no one should ever go away from my bed disappointed. As time went on, my body... stopped cooperating all the time. If I was tired or sad or... If I couldn't stop thinking..." He shrugged the un-wrenched shoulder and looked back towards the food.
Lancelot looked somehow disappointed and pleased at the same time. "So no one has ever used this on you? Not even yourself?"
He frowned, annoyed. "Lancelot, please, what's the game? I'm hungry and that stew is getting cold."
He smirked. "I'm going to give it to you. But first, this is going inside you, and it's going to stay there while I take care of you."
Gawain's mouth went dry and his stomach flipped. "What?"
The Weeping Monk slid forward on silent feet, crouching next to the bed and working his hands under the blankets.
No, Gawain reminded himself tensely. Not the Weeping Monk. Lancelot.
"Yes?" He asked, gripping his thigh firmly but clearly asking permission.
He steeled his nerves and lifted his leg, shivering as the cold air of the winter night reached under the blankets too.
"You have to say out loud if you want this or not. And you have to mean it. I couldn't stand to repeat what happened before."
Yes, this was definitely Lancelot. He could do this for Lancelot. He inhaled as deeply as he could and managed, "Yes. Yes I want it."
Lancelot leaned in and gave him a gentle kiss. "Relax."
And he tried his best, he really did. But even though Lancelot coated it in body-warm oil, even though he prepared him with his hands first, even though he went slow, so sweetly slow, it was a lot. He shuddered and twitched, holding on to the bed and choking on his reactions until it stopped halfway.
Lancelot laid a hand on his chest, frowning. "We're far from anyone else. No one can hear you. Open up."
Gawain let out a very vocal gasp and groan.
"Are you in pain?"
"Yes," he gasped, "But not from this. It's just... I'm so empty and this is so much."
Lancelot gave him a reassuring kiss and paused to let him adjust. "We're almost there. Try to relax."
"But you--"
"If you worry about me in this moment I am going to kill myself," he threatened, "just so it will be the last time you ask me that stupid fucking question."
Gawain thumped his head back against the bed and huffed a laugh, but that was moment Lancelot would remember forever: when tears finally started to fall.
He eased the carved stone farther inside, then held in place for a moment, enjoying the reaction it was getting. Pleased, he folded the blankets back over him and sat next to him on the bed. "Breathe," he advised.
"I feel it," he huffed.
"I should hope so," he smirked. "How does it make you feel?"
He took a few more breaths. "Heavy. Grounded. ...Safe."
Lancelot leaned over and gave him a long, rewarding kiss. "Get comfortable. It's going to stay there as long as you can physically stand it."
He hissed through his teeth, but didn't protest.
Lancelot took the stew bowl from the table at last and watched his attention slowly shift. "Can you hold it yourself, or...?"
Gawain trembled. "You had better hold the bowl. I can manage the spoon."
And he did his best, propped up against the headboard and with so many significant distractions. After the second bite, his hunger took over, and he was able to finish the bowl.
Lancelot took it from him and ran his fingers through his hair, smiling gently. "Good?"
"Hm," Gawain agreed.
"As good as home?"
He grimaced and coughed. "Can we please not talk about home while there's a dildo in my ass?"
Lancelot laughed. "A fair request. But we are going to talk." He set the bowl aside and pulled the blankets down to reveal his chest. He rested his hand over the destroyed side, fingers brushing the vines absently. "How did this?"
Gawain made an inpatient noise. "It pulls when I move. It stabs when I cough. It aches in the cold. But I think they're trying to help."
He brushed his palm over them, and as before, the vines loosened at the contact, searching for him. "Hm."
He grimaced. "It moves inside of me."
"The vines, or the dildo?" He asked flippantly.
Gawain laughed, then coughed, then tensed, trying to hold on. "Ugh."
Lancelot let the Hidden's blessing into his mind willingly this time. The lack that they had found before was still there, but not as achingly new, not urgent. And not as hollow. "I'm going to try," he decided.
"But they're helping."
"These ones are not healing you. They're just holding on to the wound." He leaned down once again, but this time he pressed his lips to the bruised skin. Heal him. Let him go. I will catch him.
Gawain choked as Lancelot pulled gently on the largest of the vines, and the others came loose. And then, startlingly, the vine inside his chest started to unravel, and he kept pulling as it did. He felt something familiar leaving him, and with that sensation came a strange sense of loss, but the relief that flooded in behind it was so intense that his vision blurred and gravity stopped working.
Lancelot dumped the vines-- some disturbingly thick-- on the ground next to the bed, spat a mouthful of bitter hate and blackened saliva into them, and carefully checked the aftermath. His ribs seemed to be whole and in the right places, his chest was expanding and contracting with his breath, and the skin was closed and perfect.
Gawain was floating again. Shock? Maybe. It seemed difficult to think, like trying to hear something very far away. His own thoughts. He looked up at Lancelot with an exhausted, watery expression. "How did you know what to do?"
"I don't, until I'm doing it," he admitted. "When I touch them, they tell me."
He exhaled, gazing in admiration at Lancelot. Then inhaled deeply. Exhaled. He smiled.
Lancelot hoped the heat in his cheeks wasn't visible, but the inherent praise in that look was warming him more than he would have liked. He felt useful. Powerful. This helpless creature was in his hands. He could do anything. He gave him more touches. They both liked that at least. "Can you at least begin to trust that I'm not going to kill you tonight?" He asked, drawing the backs of his fingernails along the now-perfect ribs.
Gawain shivered, expression haunted.
"I want you to need me for other things, besides killing you. You seem to need someone to save you, and I owe you that much at least." He ran his fingertips along his cheekbones. "Tonight, at least, I am not your killer."
Amidst the disappointment that shadowed Gawain's face, there was also something new. Hope?
"Take a leap," Lancelot advised him. "For all that you want to trust me to take care of, let me start by taking care of you. Even when you're not dying."
Gawain's eyes dulled. Warmed. More golden than green. He exhaled and reached out a hand from under the blankets, this time clutching his hand almost shyly. The timid and uncertain expression was incongruous on his bold features. "Tonight and... Maybe tomorrow. I might need a little more."
Lancelot smiled and gave him another deep kiss as a reward. "That's right," he whispered encouragingly. "Whatever you need. However long you need. I am strong enough to go forever with you."
Gawain shivered again, reaching out more strongly and holding on to him. "I'm so tired and empty. But with you, there's something--" he keened as Lancelot shifted his weight to lay half on top of him, pinning him to the bed. He felt the stone inside if him shift, an intense pressure. He scratched at Lancelot's sides, frantically trying somehow to draw the ash man physically into his heart.
"That's it," Lancelot encouraged gently. "There it is. There it all is." He leaned down and growled into his ear. "Give it to me. Give all of it to me now."
And suddenly Gawain was shaking like a leaf in a storm, sobbing like a child, coming like a teenager, and heaving something out of his chest that poured through his mouth, a river of words and grief that felt like his heart's blood. Even as he was pushing the grief out if his body, he panicked-- what could possibly hold him up, now that it was gone?
"I've been so many places and met so many people who are gone. Made them promises and tried for them. I remember every place like it was yesterday. Every voice like they're just in the other room or right around the corner. I smell things sometimes that I haven't experienced in years. Meaningless words spoken by people who will never speak again. I remember the tavern at the end of the wall in Jerusalem and the smell of the markets in Rome and the sound of the reflecting pool in the courtyard where my first lover lived, in Alexandria. Obligations I have yet to fulfill to people who aren't around to see them done. I have-- I have a letter from a man I should have saved, to his wife, but I never got the courage to deliver it. Hundreds of places. Thousands of souls." He choked.
Lancelot bit down on his shoulder, hard, and worked his arm under the blankets until he could feel the bottom of the stone phallus. He pushed it firmly up, up, tearing down the walls he'd built over decades.
"I left my family," he sobbed, arching into it. "I left my true family and went to the other side of the world to please people who sent me away like trash. I didn't want to be this. I never wanted to be this. But it's what the world needs. I've lived too many lives." He choked again.
"Who are you?" Lancelot asked, moving his knee to hold the stone phallus in place while he grabbed the twitching cock above it. He stroked it gently, knowing it would be extremely sensitive, wanting to keep his lover overwhelmed. Vulnerable. Bleeding.
Gawain made a confused noise.
"Who are you, without all of the obligations and the ghosts?" He squeezed his cock mercilessly.
Gawain's hands flew up to his shoulders, holding on. He was floating, spinning wildly. There was no gravity anymore, and no sky or ground. No directions, no sound but the pounding of his blood in his ears and the throbbing of his bursting heart and his quivering ass. "I'm Gawain. Just Gawain." He hid his face in Lancelot's shoulder, willing the sensations to stop. "Your Gawain."
Lancelot released him, content with this answer. He drew the slick stone phallus out slowly, enjoying how Gawain shuddered against him and jerked, and the sounds he made. He murmured soothing, wordless sounds in his ear, tossing the thing aside with a mind-bending heavy clunk.
Gawain continued to cling to him, though he was beyond exhausted. When Lancelot moved to rise, he begged him to stay. "Please, just... Just until I'm whole again. Until it's not so cold."
Lancelot smiled, this time softly and fondly. He toed off his boots and slipped under the blankets, leaning his whole weight onto Gawain again, anchoring him. He rained soft kisses down on him. "You did so well," he praised. "You're so beautiful and strong. What a perfect confession. A perfect blood-letting." He rested their foreheads against each other. "I'm proud of you. My Gawain."
"Hm-mm," he wondered, perfectly wrecked. "You..." He trailed off, tossing his head to the side and frowning, trying to remember what words were.
Lancelot waited patiently, admiring how Gawain's eyes were finally the color he remembered. He smiled.
Gawain fell asleep before he remembered how to speak.